


A Woman of Waves and Stories

by Aurelia_Combeferre



Series: A Coterie that Became Historic -the 1830s AU [13]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: AU, EnjonineWeek2019, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Family, the skeleton woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 13:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20243620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurelia_Combeferre/pseuds/Aurelia_Combeferre
Summary: Set in the "When Apollo Met Persephone" verse. In which Enjolras and Eponine's older daughter reads an old story that gives her some insight into her parents and their unusual tale.





	A Woman of Waves and Stories

**(Prompt 7: Generations) A Woman of Waves and Stories**

_1851_

It only stood to reason that books and other paper miscellany would eventually pile up and form precarious piles in 9 Rue Guisarde, owing to the occupations and habits of its residents. “If we didn’t keep our rooms in order, we’d be swimming in piles of notes. You should see my brothers’ rooms,” Laure Enjolras said once to her best friend Marie-Fantine Pontmercy as they were sorting out a bookshelf in the aforementioned house. The latter was staying over with the Enjolras family for a few days, as she was wont to do during breaks from the school at Picpus.

“My brother Jean said that this place is a library masquerading as a house,” Marie-Fantine replied, pausing to dust off a leather-bound tome. She sneezed before daintily wiping her nose and tying back her black hair. She sat on the floor to make herself comfortable. “Isn’t this one of your old books from when we were young girls?”

“Younger you mean, you’re not quite sixteen,” Laure pointed out as she leaned over to get a look at the title. Her dark eyes widened as she realized what Marie-Fantine had. “Of course you remember this; it’s the book of stories that Papa gave me when I was maybe seven or so.”

“The one with stories around the world?”

“Yes, that!” The blonde girl wiped her hands on her skirt before opening the book carefully to an illustration of a princess in a jewel-encrusted gown, dancing with an equally resplendent prince. “I remember this one was one of your favorites.”

Marie-Fantine giggled as she looked at the picture. “You know, these balls come up in many of the other stories too. Just different reasons for going, and different dresses.” She fondly ran her fingers over the illustration. “I sometimes used to pretend whenever my parents would go out, that they would be at a ball like this. Maman was, and still is, more beautiful than these princesses. And their story sounds like a fairy tale too.”

“Wooing in a garden, while your grandfather was asleep?” Laure asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Well it wasn’t entirely _right_, but it would be a little romantic otherwise.” Marie-Fantine turned the book to a random page, and recoiled at the illustration that met her curious eyes. “Oh goodness what is that? It’s ghastly!”

“It _is_ a book of stories from all over, and not all of them are pretty,” Laure pointed out as she surveyed the picture of a man in a boat, pulling a skeleton woman out of the water with his fishing line. As grotesque and startling as it was, there was something about the image that seemed more alive than the picturesque ones preceding it. Below this picture was the beginning of a story, which Laure began to read aloud:

‘_There was once a young woman who lived happily on the shores, until a misfortune befell her and she was cast into the sea. Who did it to her, why it happened, no one remembers; only that she was left to be lost under the waves. Here the fish took every bit of her till she was nothing more than a skeleton, waiting in the deeps. _

_There was also once a fisherman who sailed the loneliest coves, often alone. He had drifted far in search of the best catch, and it was here he tossed out his line. His hook reached into the deep, and caught, of all things, the bones in the Skeleton Woman’s rib cage. And so without her knowing how or why, she was dragged up, and up out of the deep. She twisted and tried to get free, but the hook held fast. The fisherman in his boat thought as his line shook, ‘Ah, I must have gotten a big one!’ Such was his waiting and his thinking that he did not notice what was rising under the sea froth. When he looked up he saw right before him the Skeleton Woman floating at the surface, her eyes and ears filled with the sea crabs and worms of the deep, and with her bald head and long teeth glistening in the sun. _

_The fisherman screamed and fell back, and his heart fell too deep in him as his limbs began to shake. He screamed and tried to knock her away from his kayak, but he did not see how tangled Skeleton Woman was in his line. In his fear he paddled as quickly as he could to the shore. He looked back and screamed again, for she seemed to be chasing him as she bumped in the waves after his kayak turning this way and that---’_

“Girls, what are you doing?” a low voice cut through Laure’s reading.

“We just found an old book, Maman,” Laure greeted her mother cheerily. Like nearly everyone else at home engaged in cleaning and dusting up, Eponine had on an old dress, and her long red hair was tied up in a kerchief. Here, she did not wear her gloves, and her twisted left hand was in plain sight. ‘_How does she ever manage with it?’ _Laure wondered silently once again.

She could never think of two women more different than her own mother and Marie-Fantine’s mother, the same woman she had learned to call Aunt Cosette. Aunt Cosette was all elegant, light and very put together, with a voice that was always sweet. Her dark hair was never out of place, her clothes always fine, and very demure just like those storybook princesses. Laure’s own mother Eponine was not a woman of air, but certainly something more whole yet chaotic and loud. There was no keeping her reddish-brown hair in a perfect coif; a fact which belied her famously fiery wit that did not seem to belong in a tale at all. 

Eponine merely nodded, seemingly unaware of her daughter’s reverie. “The wash room downstairs is ready, and I s’pose it’s better if you girls use it to get cleaned up now for the party we’re all going to later.”

“In that case, Marie-Fantine will go first since she’s company,” Laure said.

“Your hair takes longer to dry,” Marie-Fantine pointed out.

“I’ll manage. You need to use the place at its best, before the boys notice the are fresh baths around,” Laure said. Just knowing in what state her brothers often left the washroom in was enough to make her shudder with revulsion. “But what about you, Maman?” she asked Eponine.

“I’ll go after you both are finished; there’s still some things I need to finish too,” Eponine replied as she stepped back out into the hallway.

Marie-Fantine shivered as she got to her feet. “I will need that wash, to get the Skeleton Woman out of my head!” she declared.

“I think coffee would be better,” Laure pointed out as she also stood up. ‘_If Maman’s hand could get so twisted from a bullet, what more could Skeleton Woman from all that water?’ _the thought crossed her mind as she went to her closet to find a suitable dress to wear.

**

The evening’s festivities were meant to be a “dinner party” at the house of one of the city representatives in the Chaillot district. “Can someone explain to me what the difference is between dinner and a ball?” Marie-Fantine asked Laure exasperatedly after they had extricated themselves from yet another conversation on the sidelines of the dance floor.

“For some fine people it’s one and the same. And why are you asking me, I don’t know very much of these things!” Laure exclaimed. “Your school friends from Picpus would know more.”

“But you’re a legislator’s daughter,” Marie-Fantine said. “That is pretty fine in itself.”

Laure merely shrugged as she picked up another glass of sugar-water from a passing server. All around them was light and glamor, with men and women dressed in the latest fashions as they laughed, flirted, preened, and dined. Her own brothers were no exceptions; tall and blond Julien was dancing with a friend, Sophie Feuilly, and drawing quite some attention without intending to. Etienne, being just eleven, was off with some other boys decimating the food selections. However as always, it was their parents who were in the middle of the action; Antoine Enjolras was of course talking with some colleagues both in and out of the legislature, while Eponine was in the middle of a lively debate with some friends and visitors from outside Paris. ‘_It will take some practice to get that way,’ _Laure could not help but think. Even though her parents never dressed flashily or made themselves particularly conspicuous, they somehow always seemed to be in the center of events.

Marie-Fantine suddenly tugged Laure’s arm. “Let’s get away, she’s coming…” she whispered.

“Oh there you are Citizenness Pontmercy!” a high pitched voice crooned as its owner nearly bowled over both Marie-Fantine and Laure with the rushing of her shot silk skirts. Theresia Montmoro effusively kissed Marie-Fantine on both cheeks, but she reserved merely a nod for Laure. “And of course Citizenness Enjolras.”

Marie-Fantine smiled, just managing to keep a straight face. “Are you looking for a dance partner?” she asked her school friend.

“Just catching my breath,” Theresia said. “I didn’t think you’d be invited,” she said sourly to Laure. “Did you have to use the side door to get here?”

Marie-Fantine’s jaw dropped at this slight. “Theresia!”

“Leave her be,” Laure whispered. She drew herself up to her full height as she looked at Theresia all the way down to her obtrusive attire. “I would use the side door, or the carriage gate only if I dressed as you did.”

Theresia’s cheeks blazed scarlet for a moment. “You know what my mother says about your mother?” she hissed.

Laure crossed her arms. “I don’t care to know.” 

Marie-Fantine sighed and grabbed Laure’s arm to drag her off. “The only reason she is such a prig is because she knows my father is a Baron, not that it matters anymore,” she said to her friend.

“Which makes her so much of a silly!” Laure hissed. “I mean really---”

“Why do you think my mother doesn’t like going to these things either, even if she is a Baronne?” Marie-Fantine reasoned.

Laure sighed with frustration, even as she felt relieved that this altercation had not turned into a full on tiff. ‘_Which would earn us trouble and scolding,’ _she thought even as she followed Marie-Fantine to get some food. “It’s just as well for your parents that they are out of town and you are staying with us. My parents can’t avoid them, not with all the things they do.”

“You’ll have to learn when you go into the law school,” Marie-Fantine pointed out.

“Yes, and I would learn it even if I didn’t,” Laure sighed, noticing even now how Theresia was griping to other friends across the room. She tore her eyes away from this odious sight, back to where her parents were still in their respective conversations. For a moment she saw her father catch her mother’s eye and give her a nod, which she returned almost imperceptibly. And yet in that moment something in the room seemed to shift, with the talk growing livelier as the groups began to mingle, then merge and then slowly drift off. ‘_All that without a dance or causing a scene?’ _Laure marveled silently before returning with her friend to the dance floor.

**

The dance ended close to midnight, and so it was past one in the morning when the lights were put out at 9 Rue Guisarde. Yet even so Laure lay awake, her mind awhirl with the events of the night. Taking care not to disturb Marie-Fantine, who was asleep in the spare bed moved into her room, she crept over to grab the book of stories from the shelf. Laure found a bit of candle and lit it just enough for her to read these words:

‘_The fisherman screamed as his boat reached the shore, for Skeleton Woman was still close behind him. He ran and ran, not knowing she was still tangled in his fishing line. She was dragged and bumped over the rocks and the frozen ground, her bones clacking and rattling all the while. _

_Finally the fisherman saw his little house and dove right in, crying and shaking in fear. His heart was pounding fast, harder than the ocean waves not far away. He waited for his breath to come back to him till he reached for the small oil lamp in his home. When he lit it, he screamed once again, for there near the door lay Skeleton Woman, all in a heap. Her ankles were tangled over her arms, her head was hanging below her shoulders, and her ribs and her hips were tilted every which way. Perhaps it was something about the way she was so tangled that had the fisherman looking at her again, and then once more. And something began to change, perhaps in the light or in the fisherman’s eyes. He crouched before her and reached out with his cold fingers to gently pull her ankle up away from her shoulders and back in place. “There, that’s better,” he whispered soothingly as he untangled first her feet, then her arms, her head and her neck, and last of all her hips and her ribs. It was long hard work, but soon he had gotten Skeleton Woman’s bones in the proper order, as most any person’s should be. _

_And in the light, in this way, she no longer looked so terrifying. Skeleton Woman remained quiet as the fisherman removed the hook that had grabbed her and rewound his fishing line. He looked at her time and again, but she remained quiet as he worked. At last he felt the drowsiness creeping to his eyes, and he slid under the furs of his bed to fall into a deep sleep’_

Before Laure could read further, she heard Marie-Fantine stir in her bed. Quickly she extinguished the candle and dove under the covers. “Until morning then,” she resolved before falling into a similarly dreamless slumber.

**

It was not Marie-Fantine who brought Laure out of her sleep, but rather the sound of footsteps in the hall and on the stairs. ‘_Who could be up so early?’ _she wondered as she crept out of bed and opened the door a crack. She could hear what sounded like conversation coming from the kitchen. As noiselessly as possible Laure tiptoed down the stairs and went to the kitchen to get a better look.

Here she saw her parents seated together at the small table there, both of them sipping coffee. “Who would have thought that last night would end up in a whole new lot of things to do?” Eponine said as she put down her cup.

“You were sought out,” Enjolras said, also setting down his drink. His usually serious mien was now more at ease, and he even smiled as he looked at Eponine. In the morning light he seemed less like a man who’d slept little and more like someone who’d enjoyed a short but good rest. “I am sure our hosts told their guests you would be coming, hence the discussion about the books you translated from the authoress Austen.”

“_We_ were coming,” Eponine corrected. She smiled as she touched his arm, more so when he drew closer to her. “You had the floor when it came to the measures about Algeria and I find that just as interesting as those wonderful stories. None of which, if you ask me, quite fit to what I know.”

“And why would you say so?”

“Miss Austen from England could never quite write someone like both of us.”

It was all that Laure could do to keep from giggling at hearing such open talk between her parents. She swiftly rushed back to her room and fetched the book she had hidden under her blankets. Under the light of the rising dawn, she read:

‘_As the fisherman wandered in his dreams, a single tear escaped from his eyes. The Skeleton Woman saw this tear and became so thirsty like never before. She clinked and clanked as she crawled over to the dreaming fisherman and drank deep from his tear. She drank long and long till her deep thirst was finally quenched. _

_Now she reached inside the sleeping man and brought out his heart. She began to pound on it like a great, majestic drum. Boom, boom, boom sounded the drum as she began to sing. She sang with his heart for the flesh on her bones. She sang the long dark hair on her head, her bright eyes, her quick hands, her strong hips and all the many things a woman needs. And when she was whole, she carefully put his heart back into his chest, then slipped under the sleeping skins with him. Then they were tangled together, and woke up together in a much better way. _

_The people say the man and the woman left together hand in hand, and they never went hungry for they were well fed by the creatures of the sea she had once come from. And so their story has been told ever since.’_

**Author's Note:**

> "The Skeleton Woman" is an old Native American story. I first read it in Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book "Women Who Run With Wolves", but it can be found online at https://www.arnellart.com/LaDeth.htm
> 
> However I have chosen to narrate this story in my words. I hope you enjoyed this little retelling as well, and that it does the tale justice.


End file.
